1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet jogger for registering the edges of a stack of sheets into an aligned justified bundle, elective stapling each bundle of sheets, and elective offsetting each ejected bundle from the other into a discharge bin.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the field of sheet joggers, it has been a general practice to utilize joggers which are large complex mechanical structures to register edges of a stack of sheets thereby forming an aligned justified bundle. The prior art sheet joggers usually have mechanical structure which requires and consumes considerable amounts of floor space in addition to presenting safety hazards to the operator from moving mechanical components during sheet jogging operations.
During sheet jogging operations, it is difficult to remove a sheet jam or misaligned bundle in a sheet jogger which might occur during registration of sheet edges prior to an elective stapling operation preceeding offset discharge into a storage bin. Removal of a paper jam usually requires mechanical component disassembly to a certain degree of the sheet jogger to extract jam or misaligned sheets of a stack from the mechanical jogging structure on the jogging deck and then reassembly is required prior to again beginning sheet jogging operations.
Also, sheet joggers usually do not permit simple and quick adjustment to the mechanical structure to allow for different lengths or widths of paper without possible complex and time consuming adjustments to the mechanical jogging structure if such are even permissible. Further, some past prior art sheet joggers have inherent noise factor problems during operation of the mechanical machines presenting a high noise decibal factor to the degree of possibly being dangerous to the operator's hearing and personal surrounding. For these reasons, prior art sheet joggers have certain inherent mechanical limitations and deficiencies yielding less than satisfactory registration of sheets.
Mestre, U.S. Pat. No. 3,172,656 issued on Mar. 9, 1965, discloses a sheet jogging mechanism for precisely aligning a plurality of sheets to bring them into precise lateral and longitudinal alignment. The sheets are brought into approximate end to end alignment against stops by a conveyor belt system. While the sheets are halted against the stops, jogging to bring a group of sheets into registration of an aligned justified bundle takes place followed by stapling. After stapling, the conveyor belt system carries the stapled group of sheets to a deposit platform. A jogging mechanism is provided to determine if one or more sheets are missing; and if such occurs, the stapled group of sheets is carried to a rejection bin. This invention jogs sheets into registration using simplicity of mechanical structure and operation.